restart numbering changes the style's format

[Barbara White]

Hi, everyone,

We're using Word 2003 on Windows XP and our group has been having its
share of Word problems these last couple of weeks. :-|

We're using templates that we've been using for awhile and have not had
this problem before. I'm at a loss as to why this problem would start
out of the blue.

Someone began using the templates and noticed that when they restart the
numbering in a list, different formatting is applied to the paragraph.
(The style is defined to have a 0" left indent with a .3" hanging
indent. But when the numbering is restarted, the style reflects a
first-line indent instead of a hanging indent, and the measurement
settings change.)

To reset the numbering, we're doing a right-click and choosing "restart
numbering".

Before I restart the numbering, the numbering properties show a 0" left
indent and a .3" hanging indent--the paragraph formats for that style
are the same.

After I restart the numbering and the formatting goes awry, if I do a
Format > Paragraph, the left align is .3" and the hanging indent is .3".
(However, if I look at the style definitions via Format > Styles and
Formatting, the definitions are correct even though those definitions
are NOT reflected in that particular paragraph.) Doing a CTRL-Q at that
point corrects the indent and the numbering, but then the spacing is
wrong; also after I do that, I cannot do a right-click to restart the
formatting to that particular paragraph.

What might cause this to happen?

I am very, very weak when it comes to a lot of things in Word,
particularly with numbering and numbered Styles. I apologize in advance
if I haven't provided enough background in this post or if I've provided
too much detail about the wrong things.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

 

[Barbara White]

The other thing that I'm curious about is this: No one has edited the
templates to change the numbering scheme for any of the Styles. Given
that, why would this reset-definition behavior suddenly start?

(I'm posting this followup after looking through this group's archives
and seeing older posts where others have experienced similar problems.
Usually, the followups are to explain to the user how to set up
numbering. Which then makes me wonder about why this behavior suddenly
started--why it was that these numbered styles in the template worked
for years but suddenly stopped working.)

 

[Suzanne S. Barnhill]

Have a look at http://word.mvps.org/FAQs/Numbering/ListRestartMethods.htm
for some ideas.

 

[John McGhie [MVP Word, Word Mac]]

Hi Barbara:

It's really difficult to explain why this happens. Or rather, *I* found it
difficult to understand the explanation!

Simplistically, you can say that while the "Formatting" is part of the
Paragraph Style, the "Numbering" is not. If you set the styles up
correctly, the numbering List Template is "Linked" to the style, but it is
not part of it.

What makes it difficult is that the tabs and indents in the numbering
override and conflict with the same settings in the paragraph style.

A document makes no further reference to the template after it has been
created. So it doesn't matter what happens in the template after the
document is created. UNLESS the document has "Automatically update styles
on open" turned on in the Tools>Templates and Add-ins dialog. If that is
turned on, each time the document is opened, all of the styles from the
template are copied into the document each time it is opened. But the
NUMBERING List Templates are NOT copied. So immediately, the association
between the Styles and the numbering is broken each time the document is
opened.

So that's the first thing to check: In Tools>Templates check that
"Automatically update styles ..." is NOT turned on in any document using
numbering.

The other thing is to check that that user is ACTUALLY using right-click to
restart the numbering. If they use Right-click>Bullets and Numbering, they
will not restart the old list, they will apply a new list. And the new list
will not be associated with the style.

You need also to check -- in the document, not the template -- that the link
between the Style and its numbering remains in place. It is all too easy
for an inexperienced user to do something that breaks that association. The
numbering can then be associated with a different style, the correct style
can pick up different numbering, or the correct numbering may not be
attached to a style at all. The link is very fragile: playing around in
Format>Bullets and Numbering can break it in a flash, without the user being
aware of that or even intending to do it.

Come back if you find this a bit cryptic: It took me a while to understand
it.

The person who specified this mechanism in Word seems to have not properly
understood how the various numbering types are actually used. That left the
software designer trying to do too many things with a single design. The
net result is that we have a fiendishly complex mechanism that works very
well but requires users to know some very complex stuff, and most don't want
to take the time to learn it.

Hope this helps

--

The question you are about to ask has probably already been answered at
http://www.word.mvps.org/

Please reply in the group. Please do NOT email me unless I ask you to.

John McGhie, Consultant Technical Writer
McGhie Information Engineering Pty Ltd
http://jgmcghie.fastmail.com.au/
Sydney, Australia. GMT + 10 Hrs
+61 4 1209 1410, mailto:[email protected]

 

[SSchreffler]

I had just discovered this property of Automatically update styles...
and was going to suggest to my co-workers to use this ability to apply
a template instead of our old method (Going into Organizer and pulling
all the styles from the template in to the current document) as LONG
as they turned off Automatically update styles... before saving the
document.

Does bringing the styles in using the Organizer also break the
association between Styles and numbering? IE is the only way to get
numbering from a template into a new document to open the template and
then copy/paste data in and reformat it using the styles?

I'd appreciate any insights you might give on this as I am the local
"Word expert" and in charge of teaching my co-workers best practices
of working with Word. We use numbering a -lot- in our documents so we
run in to many of the common problems it seems.

Sarah Schreffler
Bellevue, WA

 

[John McGhie [MVP Word, Word Mac]]

Hi Sarah:

Sadly, "Yes".

There was an old technique where if you selected some numbered styles in the
organiser, then copied THREE times (saying Yes to the overwrite prompt each
time) you would bring in the the Linked Styles on the second copy and the
List Template on the third.

I am not sure that it ever worked, but if it did, I think that it got broken
by the updates to try to overcome the "char char char" bug in Word 2002.

I suggest the following stratetgy:

1) Insist that all documents are created fresh from a correctly-formatted
template. That will ensure that the List Templates and the Styles remain
correctly attached in the produced document.

2) Use VBA to apply your styles. This ensures that each style is applied
to the entire paragraph, preventing the creation of Linked Styles that break
the numbering.

3) Code your VBA to check for the presence of the correct numbering when
applying each style, and to re-create and re-attach the List Template if it
is not there.

You can do "3" safely in Word 2002 and above, because it checks for unused
List Templates and deletes them from the document on Save. You cannot do
that with earlier versions because the List Templates will grow continuously
until they overflow Word's buffer and corrupt the document.

Let me know if you need any more help.

Cheers

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Please reply in the group. Please do NOT email me unless I ask you to.

John McGhie, Consultant Technical Writer
McGhie Information Engineering Pty Ltd
http://jgmcghie.fastmail.com.au/
Sydney, Australia. S33°53'34.20 E151°14'54.50
+61 4 1209 1410, mailto:[email protected]